The Moores live in the rural Midwest. (“We live in the corn,” Blodwen's dad says.) Blodwen’s home-school friends include some pagan kids, but mostly they’re from Mormon and Fundie families.

The Day comes and everything goes swimmingly. The women take Blodwen out to the stone circle in the backyard (you see what I mean about being reborn in the Moore family), and do what's traditionally done. (Meanwhile, the men are back in the house setting up the party and drinking beer, which is also part of the tradition: it keeps everyone in place and out of trouble.) When the women bring Blodwen back in to food, congratulations, and gifts wrapped in red, she's shining.

During the weeks that follow, we can be sure, the same scenario plays out in kitchen after Midwest kitchen.

“Mom, how come when Blodwen got her first period she got a party and a cake and presents and money and stuff, and when I got my first period I didn’t get any of those things and we can’t even talk about it because it’s not polite?

Poet, scholar and storyteller Steven Posch was raised in the hardwood forests of western Pennsylvania by white-tailed deer. (That's the story, anyway.) He emigrated to Paganistan in 1979 and by sheer dint of personality has become one of Lake Country's foremost men-in-black. He is current keeper of the Minnesota Ooser.